


A Friendly Nudge

by CoffeeJay



Series: Rare Pairs and Requests [7]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, M/M, Matchmaking, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Third Wheels, Wingman Kiku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:22:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeJay/pseuds/CoffeeJay
Summary: Kiku has watched his friends pine after each other for too long.
Relationships: Germany/North Italy (Hetalia)
Series: Rare Pairs and Requests [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1058018
Comments: 20
Kudos: 88





	A Friendly Nudge

They had always been close. Kiku had noticed Feliciano and Ludwig’s bond the day he’d met them, although he hadn’t then recognized it for what it was.

Back then, the war and his culture shock had sufficiently cloaked the true nature of their feelings from his view. Lingering touches were nothing more than weariness and simple Italian affection. Long, intimate conversations were the bonds of brothers in arms. If they were anything more-- and often, Kiku had wondered-- there was no space within a war for such a tender thing as love.

But then peace had resumed its quiet dominion over their lives, and Kiku had been given time to consider these things more thoroughly.

Ludwig and Feliciano were close. Feliciano liked kissing Ludwig’s cheeks, and Ludwig enjoyed sketching Feliciano’s face. The two of them didn’t treat Kiku as they treated each other, and that suited Kiku just fine. He assumed that initially, the relative distance between himself and his friends was due to their being mere acquaintances, and that later, it was because they respected his aversion to touch and his desire for privacy. 

Except, Kiku had since grown more intimate with the two of them, and he had in doing so noticed a few smaller intricacies to their relationships with one another.

When the three of them passed the time together, certain parts of them tended to show themselves more prominently than other aspects of their personalities. Feliciano tended to be energetic and optimistic, while Ludwig most frequently presented himself as pragmatic and level-headed-- no doubt, Kiku suspected, in part to counter Feliciano’s spontaneity.

Proof of this rested in the times when Ludwig and Kiku spent time with only each other. In those rare hours, Ludwig was calm, relaxed, and considerate to a fault. He even displayed a keen sense of humor, although it had taken Kiku quite a long time to recognize it for what it was. 

Feliciano, on the other hand, grew quiet when he was alone with Kiku. At least, quiet by Feli’s standards. When in the solitary company of friends, Kiku learned that Feliciano carried a reflective, somber soul beneath his optimistic exterior.

Kiku often wondered what it was about him that made people soften in his company.

However, the unique experience of Ludwig and Feliciano with only one another for company was something that Kiku had only ever glimpsed. Hushed conversations in campsites when his friends had thought him asleep, the last moments of intimate embraces that broke only when Kiku announced his presence with a cough or a shuffle, soft gazes at the other presumed to be unobserved-- from these, Kiku composed the delicate image of a Ludwig and a Feliciano who longed for something they denied themselves.

Kiku endeavored to understand why.

“May I ask you something personal?” he asked Ludwig, the question timed perfectly in the middle of a meticulously planned afternoon. They had gone for lunch after work, peppering drinks and good conversation between plays in the football match on the television. It had to be casual. Ludwig might startle, otherwise.

“I suppose,” Ludwig replied, more intrigued than intimidated. This was a good sign. “What is it?”

“You and Feliciano and I have known each other for many years now,” Kiku carefully began. “I believe we’ve all grown quite close. We share our stories, and our time, and I consider all of us to be friends. Very good ones, in fact.” Ludwig nodded patiently despite the twitch of his brow, which Kiku had grown to recognize as an expression of his desire for one to get to the point. “Do you consider your relationship with Feliciano to be friendship, or, perhaps… something else?”

Ludwig blinked, and then he sat back in his seat. Oddly enough, he smiled. “So you’ve noticed,” he said. The crowd on the television cheered. “How long..?”

“A little while.”

Ludwig’s smile widened. He almost showed his teeth. “To answer your question, we’re friends. Very good friends. That’s-- That’s all.”

Just this once, Kiku allowed his skepticism to show on his face.

A sigh escaped Ludwig before he said, “Kiku, I trust you with my life, so I suppose you can hold a secret for me. I have held… feelings for Feliciano for-- well.” His smile tilted into a grimace. “More than a little while, shall we say.”

“Ah,” said Kiku. He hoped his expression resembled surprise.

“I’m very fortunate to be able to call Feliciano my friend,” Ludwig insisted. “He’s an incredible person, and I wholeheartedly cherish our time together.” He sipped his drink. “Even if he can be a handful. Asking for anything more from him would be foolish.”

Kiku had not considered that Ludwig could be capable of obliviousness, until this point. “How do you know that he wouldn’t gladly give you more?”

“Because I’ve asked.”

Kiku didn’t speak.

“He doesn’t feel the same way about me that I do about him,” Ludwig explained. There was an odd strain in his voice that Kiku had only rarely heard, a catch born of grief. “Decades ago, before I knew him better, I misread his displays of friendship as courtship, and so I did what any responsible person would do. I asked him to marry me.”

Kiku registered very little in the moment that followed except that he was grateful that he had neglected to sip his drink, as it would now surely be spewed all over his companion. “You proposed,” he stated. “Decades ago, you-- you proposed to Feliciano.”

With great sobriety, Ludwig nodded. “And I made a complete fool of myself in the process. I had a ring, custom ordered, and flowers that I believed he would like-- and I suppose he would have liked those things, had they not come from me.” He ran his hand through his hair, ruining his gel. “We hardly spoke for more than a week afterwards. I’m just glad that he’s forgiven me since then, and that he hasn’t mentioned the incident once.”

So it was ‘the incident,’ now. “And have you mentioned it?”

“To nobody except you.”

Kiku considered Ludwig’s tale, and he took his time contrasting it with the information he had collected over the past few decades. At last he asked, “May I suggest something?” Ludwig raised his eyebrows. “Ask him again.”

The eyebrows shot down again, and quite aggressively so. “I can’t do that,” said Ludwig. “He said no once. No means no. If there’s one thing I learned from those manuals back then--”

“Not to marry,” Kiku hurriedly explained. “Not yet, at least. I believe your only mistake is that you began at the wrong end of the courtship process, and did so at the wrong time. No, ask him how he feels about you,” Kiku instructed. “Ask him about that day you proposed to him, and then, if things go as I predict they will,” he said, “ask him to dinner.”

Ludwig all but recoiled from the suggestion. “I already have dinner with him regularly.”

“Then bring him sweets.”

“I already…” A blush appeared on his cheeks. “I can’t do that, Kiku,” he said. “I can’t do what you’re asking.”

“That sounds too much like cowardice to be coming from you, a man I’ve seen throw himself into battles with nothing but a pocket knife and a battlecry.”

“Battle is different,” Ludwig protested. “In battle, the worst outcome is death. If I did what you suggested, and it went poorly, the outcome would be much worse.”

Kiku resisted the urge to roll his eyes and argued, “I am fairly confident that it won’t go as you fear it will.”

“And what makes you say that?”

Very deliberately, Kiku clasped his hands together and leaned just far enough into Ludwig’s space to impart a final secret. “You and Feliciano would both be quite content with your current level of intimacy if you were only allowed to admit you possessed it.”

Ludwig’s face pinched in bewilderment, causing Kiku to slump back in his chair.

“What I mean to say,” Kiku amended, “is that you two are, at least functionally, a very happy couple. Please do me a single, simple favor, and kindly point this out to him. Your mutual pining is painful to behold.” With that, he flagged down the server. “Check, please.”

Over the days and weeks that followed, he observed his friends’ behavior more carefully than ever before, and was pleased to discover that it hardly changed. Ludwig and Feliciano still behaved as a very happy couple, except that now, Ludwig occasionally kissed Feliciano’s cheek as well.

Kiku keenly suspected that their private behavior might now somewhat differ, but he was content not to know the details. 

**Author's Note:**

> I do take requests, here in the comments, or at hetaliapurgatory.tumblr.com/ask !


End file.
